In the time of Plato, only the most educated could read and write. So if you could do both, I think your odds of being remembered had almost as much to do with writing good quality as it did with being lucky enough for your writing to survive centuries.
That’s such a good point I’ve never really thought about. 🤔 Actually kind of a trip to try and imagine a world where simply knowing how to read written text was akin to sorcery.
It’s actually a bit of an ‘urban myth’ it did apply in eg Victorian Times but at other points in history there was widespread literacy.
What you do find at some times is that an elite wrote and spoke one language but everyone else wrote another. Which was a way of controlling access to information. This is one reason that the Bible was in Latin and there was subterfuge needed to get the first Bible in English. (The pages were smuggled into the country)
In the time of Plato, only the most educated could read and write. So if you could do both, I think your odds of being remembered had almost as much to do with writing good quality as it did with being lucky enough for your writing to survive centuries.
As for us…it will happen but only very rarely.
That’s such a good point I’ve never really thought about. 🤔 Actually kind of a trip to try and imagine a world where simply knowing how to read written text was akin to sorcery.
Hey, that makes you a sorcerer, just in the wrong century.
There are merchants records and other civil documents from 1,200 years before Plato. In fact the oldest known letter of complaint dates from 1,750BC.
So I disagree.
what’s it that you disagree with?
The comment I replied to.
i know, but what specifically in that comment?
I’m not sure how else to say it without repeating it.
I disagree that only the most educated people could read and write
I disagree that not many internet posts will be recorded for posterity
but we know that too few people used to be literate. I couldn’t understand the need to disagree with this, i thought i misunderstood what you wrote.
It’s actually a bit of an ‘urban myth’ it did apply in eg Victorian Times but at other points in history there was widespread literacy.
What you do find at some times is that an elite wrote and spoke one language but everyone else wrote another. Which was a way of controlling access to information. This is one reason that the Bible was in Latin and there was subterfuge needed to get the first Bible in English. (The pages were smuggled into the country)
can you give some sources?
There was oral history too though.